


Nails

by agoodwoman



Series: What Should Have Been [5]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodwoman/pseuds/agoodwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Au Emily paints Mulder's nails</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nails

Mulder sat in his rumpled suit with his socks and shoes tossed off the side of the hospital bed stared at the top of the flaxen hair of one Emily Scully. 

“Don’t move, you’ll make me smudge,” she warned him. At seven years old she was quite the bossy boots and Mulder was wrapped around her finger. 

“I’m trying not to but it tickles, Em,” he explained and shifted his leg a little. 

“These are going to look really good when I’m done,” she said confidently.

The IV dripped into one arm while the other had intravenous therapy of good, clean O-negative blood going into the other. Mulder looked down at the shiny gold band on his ring finger and realized how far they had come since worrying Emily might not come out of the hospital four years ago. 

“Look, when that bag is done, I’m getting this crap off my toes before your mom sees,” Mulder said, nodding towards his left foot that now had lime green paint on the toes. She did a good job, actually, but this wasn’t really for him. 

“Men can get pedicures, Dad,” she said, rolling her eyes. 

She did that now. She was 7 going on 16 and she had no patience for his “old man” ideas although since adopting a daughter, Mulder had become quite the feminist. He got her on the all boys-baseball league and she was the second batter for their team. He encouraged her to do well in school so she could be a smart, capable scientist like her mom. She rolled her eyes at the last one but then giggled when Mulder kissed Scully when they thought she wasn’t looking.

“What if I put an alien head on your big toe?” she said, her pale face lighting up. Once the blood got in her system, her iron stores picked back up and she rested for a few days, she would be back to her old self. This side of her, the side that needed occasional treatments for her anemia, the kind that wasn’t special, was the kind Mulder could handle. He could handle Scully checking on them during rounds. He could handle taking a day from the office and eating seeds with his best girls. 

“You should have used grey,” Mulder said with a shake of his head. 

“Maybe this rectulian got a spray tan, Dad,” Emily countered and Mulder laughed. Okay, so she had her mother’s wit too. 


End file.
